Tag Archives: kansas city missouri

AgChat attendees swap agriculture items from across states


Image credit: Agwired

I spent most of last week in Kansas City with more than 100 farmers and agriculture professionals, learning to better utilize social media when sharing our stories. We had a great week catching up with everyone, many were first time contacts IRL (in real life). It’s a pretty neat experience to network with someone via social media and eventually meet them face to face.

We had a great turn out at the AgChat Foundation Conference Swap Meet. I’m not sure exactly how many folks showed up, but states from coast to coast, and even Canada were represented. Attendees brought food and other products that represent agriculture in their respective regions. These ranged from Wisconsin cheese to California vegetables, North Dakota honey to Bacon shirts from Iowa and even a small bale of cotton from Texas or peanuts from Georgia! It really was a great sight to see. So many people, passionate about agriculture, swapping items and knowledge like trading souvenir pens at a trade show.

It was amazing to see the diversity in agriculture products from across the States. Even when several people from one state were present, their items were all different.

From Tennessee, I brought a few guilty pleasures of mine – Moon Pies and Sun Drop. Both were smaller portion sizes so I could afford to give more away. I also brought rice from Arkansas to represent the largest group of rice producers in the country!

Below are a few of the photos captured of items at the swap meet. More images of the conference can be seen from AgWired on flickr.

If you had to select one or two items to represent food, fiber, or fuel agriculture products from your area, what would you select?

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Related articles:

Teresa Falk – Rural Route Ramblings

Nicole Small – Tales of a Kansas Farm Mom

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Road Trip to Kansas City: Missouri Agriculture Facts


Image Credit: Missouri Dept of Ag

About the time this blog posts, I’ll be at the airport in Nashville, waiting on a Southwest Airlines flight to Kansas City, Missouri for the 2012 Agvocacy 2.0 Conference presented by the AgChat Foundation. This is a great meeting held to train farmers, ranchers, and others how to better utilize Social Media and online tools to reach out to non-farm audiences. Last year’s conference was held in Nashville, TN.

As with many previous trips, I like to share many facts about agriculture from the state where I am traveling. On this blog before I have shared AgFacts from Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Tennessee. Of course, I have AgFacts from almost every state on my project page.

With a quick search from the Missouri Agriculture in the Classroom website, I found these cool facts about Agriculture in Missouri:

Missouri Weather and Climate…

  • Has a wide range of climates depending on the region of the state.
  • Average annual temperatures range from 50 degrees in the NW to 60 degrees in the SE.
  • Average statewide rainfall is 35 inches and Spring is tornado season in Missouri.
  • Menfro is the official Missouri State Soil, which occurs in about 780,000 acres in Missouri.

Missouri Crops…

  • Corn, soybeans, cattle and calves, hogs, and turkeys are Missouri’s top crops.
  • Missouri ranked nationally 5th in rice, 6th in soybeans and cotton, 8th in grain sorghum and 9th in corn production in 2009.
  • The Bootheel (SE MO) is the most intensively cropped area.
  • Cotton and rice are grown in South East Missouri.
  • Missouri produces a variety of fruits, vegetables and specialty crops.
  • According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, 47% of Missouri’s total agricultural receipts came from crops.
  • Livestock production accounted for 53% of the state’s agricultural receipts.

    Image credit: Wikipedia

Missouri according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture…

  • Ranks 2nd in number of farms.
  • Had $7.51 billion value of agricultural products sold.
  • Ranks 14th in total value of agricultural products sold.
  • Ranks 15th in farm exports.
  • Farmland accounts for 66% of the state’s total land use.

Food and Agriculture holds a strong tie to the history of Kansas City, including one of the largest livestock events in the country, the American Royal, and world renowned BBQ. I can’t wait to get there and learn more about it.

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Farmers and Ranchers Get Social at Agvocacy 2.0


The #AgChat Foundation is headed to Kansas City this summer for the 3rd Annual Agvocacy 2.0 training! I had the awesome opportunity to attend last year’s conference in Nashville. It was an awesome trip and my first to Tennessee. And now I live in Tennessee and am a student at the state’s flagship University! Coincidence? Either way, this conference is a great value for anyone who attends.

Last year’s conference was a real eye opener for me. I had the opportunity to meet so many individuals who I can connected with online, and helped to enrich those relationships. Even though I was a little overwhelmed by seeing so many of these ‘charismatic’ people in one, small room when I first arrived – that’s the introvert in me – I walked right in and was able to pick up the conversation like we were old friends. That is the power of Social Networking. We are able to forge these relationships with individuals across the globe, have familiar faces at any conference we attend, and have great connections to learn about mutual interest though we may have never initially met in real life.

I encourage anyone to apply for this year’s conference if you are willing to learn more about the tools of Social Networking. It’s not only the tools of Facebook, Twitter, or Blogging, but more importantly how to convey a message and reach out there and connect with the people on the other end who are looking to learn more about food and agriculture. Beside, ya never know how the connections you make will impact their life, or your’s.

The third-annual Agvocacy 2.0 application for the 2012 social media training conference is now available. The two-day event will explore how farmers can effectively share agriculture’s message using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, blogs and mobile applications.

The Agvocacy 2.0 conference will be held August 23 – 24, 2012 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Exciting features of the conference include:

  • One-on-one chats with agriculture’s best and brightest in social media
  • Networking with other participants
  • Information about the latest tools and trends
  • Real-world stories about taking the farm to consumers
  • Insights on the human side of being social
  • The tools to tell farming’s story confidently

“Graduates from Agvocacy 2.0 are making a significant impact in telling the agricultural story to consumers in the places where social communities are forming,” says Darin Grimm, President of the AgChat Foundation. “The prospect of equipping more individuals with the skills they need to successfully share their message is really exciting.”

Follow the conversation on Twitter by following the #ACFC12 hashtag! For more information on the Agvocacy 2.0 AgChat Foundation Conference, be sure to visit AgChat.org.

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